Thursday, January 3, 2013

If there's one thing you learn about modern life, it's the ease with which people can get diverted from the main point.

Take, for example, a "discussion" we recently avoided in a LinkedIn group. It was getting very deep into the nature of human life, the roles of faith and reason (or faith v. reason) . . . all kinds of good stuff that we've addressed on the blog at one time or another.

The problem is that the group is supposed to be about helping people find jobs.

It's like the fast food clerk getting lectured on the greedy capitalist system and the deleterious health effects of too much fat in the diet when the question was whether the customer wants fries with that.

The question most people manage to avoid these days in their anxiety to show others how virtuous/smart/whatever they are (in comparison with those others, of course) is how people are supposed to be empowered so as to be able to resist all the greed, bad health, etc., etc., etc. that "they" impose on the rest of "us."

And if they avoid the question, you can imagine the hysteria over the answer.

The bottom line here is that power, as Daniel Webster and countless others have pointed out, naturally and necessarily follows property. Restructure the system so that, as Pope Leo XIII recommended, "The law . . . should favor ownership, and its policy should be to induce as many as possible of the people to become owners." (Rerum Novarum, § 46.)

Yes, toilets in Harlem are important. World peace and ending hunger are important. The level of wages and benefits is important.

A lot of things are important . . . but what we're discussing on the Just Third Way blog is a way to solve all those problems and others through access to the means of acquiring and possessing private property in capital.